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PHOENIX — Here at the breakout session at Turning Point USA’s AmericaFest, the vibe felt less like a political panel than an evangelical revival. Asian, Black, Latino and white attendees crammed into a meeting room in the Phoenix Convention Center, crosses dangling from necks, from the dainty and demure to the big and blinged-out. There were outbursts aplenty of “Amen!,” “Yes!” and “That’s right!!!” And there were testimonies, conversion stories about sin and redemption, about straying too far to the left before finally seeing the light and being put, quite literally, on the right path.
The panel was called “The Story of How We Left the Left,” a session focused mainly on the perspectives of Black and brown voters whose increased support for Donald Trump helped fuel his victory a year ago. And if any of that support has ebbed after a 2025 that featured ugly controversies around things like Tucker Carlson’s interview with white supremacist Nick Fuentes, the (since reversed) downgrading of nooses and swastikas as hate symbols by the Coast Guard and the leaked Young Republicans group chat full of racist and antisemitic messages, it wasn’t evident here, at a gathering of MAGA’s most fervent supporters.
Instead, at AmFest, the young conservative activists of color were full of energy for what they considered the real battle: The one against Democrats who, they said, take minority votes for granted.
“I was born and raised a Democrat,” said Bianca Garcia, co-founder and president of Latinos for Trump, one of three panelists addressing the crowd. “I didn’t know any better … Obviously, I was in the plantation of the Democrat Party. But thank you, Jesus, for waking me up.” The audience erupted in applause.
Another panelist, Craig Long, a Black former prisoner, one-time liberal and self-proclaimed provider of “mean tweet commentary," added, “Have I lost family members and friends? Absolutely. I have relationships that probably will never be rebuilt, [even] with my own mother and father ... Truth is very inconvenient.”
Insofar as anyone at AmFest was talking about racists, most were pointing a finger at the left, arguing the real culprits were progressives who look down on people of color who have the temerity to think for themselves and break with the Democrats. That line is an old standby of conservative rallying, but its power hasn’t been diminished after an election where Trump made unprecedented inroads among traditionally Democratic constituencies.
“I remember being attacked by people I had known for years [for being conservative]. They were calling me a coon, Uncle Tom, every name in the book,” said the panel’s moderator, Pierre Wilson, senior director of RISE, TPUSA’s minority grassroots organizing division. “You have to choose to trust God.”
“Stop being afraid to speak up about your values and what you believe in,” Long continued. “We believe in something that is awesome. Why are we quiet about it? We believe in Jesus Christ. We believe in the gospel. We don't want men in women’s bathrooms. We don't want boys competing against girls in their sports. We don't have to be quiet about it. We're winning the culture war!”
If there is indeed a culture war going on in the U.S. — and at TPUSA itself — the conservatives of color flocking to AmFest are the right’s happy warriors, decked out in many iterations of MAGA gear, from glittery “Trump Girl” jackets to T-shirts declaring “I AM CHARLIE KIRK,” a reference to TPUSA’s founder, assassinated earlier this year.
The 30,000 attendees here, ranging in age from Gen Alpha to late-stage Boomers in wheelchairs, were surprisingly diverse for an organization that’s been a flashpoint for racial animus and antisemitism. There were Latino teens strutting the halls in oversized cCowboy hats and Asian American families linking hands as they made their way through the packed hordes. There was comedian Jobob Taeleifi interviewing Russell Brand about his love for all things Jesus. And, on the last day, there was a surprise guest: Rapper Nicki Minaj, proclaiming her newfound conservative bona fides as she declared, “We’re the cool kids.”
Their presence here reflects a growing phenomenon in American politics: These days, conservatives of color, particularly young Black and brown voters, are a small, but increasingly visible presence in the GOP. And yet, even after they helped Donald Trump clinch the presidency once again, 2025 has been a year of heated ugly rhetoric.
In October, the Young Republicans group chat exploded in a paroxysm of racial slurs and antisemitic hate. Trump denounced Somali immigrants as “garbage,” while Vice President JD Vance waxed nostalgic about “Heritage Americans” and Carlson hosted antisemite white nationalist Nick Fuentes on his podcast. Meanwhile, Republican Vivek Ramaswamy, the son of Indian immigrants who’s running for governor of Ohio, has been hit with anti-Indian hate on social media, prompting conservative firebrand Dinesh D’Souza, himself a native of India, to post on X, “If this continues, I would not be surprised to see mass desertions of blacks, Latinos and other minorities from the GOP. Unreal.”
“I'll often ask myself, ‘If I were a 17-year-old kid today,’” former RNC chair Michael Steele, who is Black and joined the GOP as a teen, told POLITICO Magazine, “‘Would I join the Republican Party? And my answer is probably, ‘No.’”
But the logic of Steele — a high-profile anti-Trump Republican — doesn’t reflect the views among the younger-generation die-hards at MAGA-flavored gatherings this fall. In interviews with roughly two dozen Gen Z and Millennial conservatives of color around the country, they seemed unfazed by the racial controversy playing out within their party. The GOP, they argue, is a big, welcoming tent.
“I don’t let that stuff bother me,” Jerrell Patterson, 39, a Black DoorDash driver and real estate agent in Milwaukee, said of the Young Republicans texting scandal. “I think people are just trying to be edgy and joke among their own group. … I’ve never experienced anything like that [with Republicans] — as opposed to Democrats, saying I can’t be a Republican because I’m Black ... [calling me] ‘bootlicker.’”
Added Manu Anpalagan, a 21, a Yale University senior and self-described Trump-era Republican, “The number of people who would actually believe those things, and who would actually say those things is such a small fringe group, and when that fringe group decides to do something crazy, it gets all the attention.
“It's a shame not only because of what [the Young Republicans] did,” continued Anpalagan, the son of Sri Lankan immigrants, “but also what they did implies about the rest of us — when the rest of us are genuinely accepting and welcoming of all people, and want to make the country and the world a better place.”
“It’s always funny when I have people, especially white liberals … come up and call me a white supremacist [because I’m conservative],” said AmFest attendee Savannah Craven-Antao, 24, a biracial anti-abortion activist and journalist. “It happens more than you would probably believe.”
In a speech from the AmFest stage, the self-proclaimed “anti-woke” Ramaswamy called out racism and bigotry in the party.
But hang around any gathering of young conservatives of color like the one at AmFest, and it’s clear that the MAGA movement’s recent identity controversies are the last thing many attendees want to talk about — especially not with members of the mainstream media.
In D.C., in early November at the Cruel Kids Halloween Party, host CJ Pearson, a 23-year-old conservative activist and prominent Black MAGA figure, held court in a sombrero, a winking reference to the White House’s social media war against House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.). Hundreds of young, overwhelmingly white conservatives packed the Saint Yves nightclub, dressed as Louvre robbers, Labubus, Disney princesses and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents — craning necks for a chance to see rapper Rick Ross perform. Not one of the handful of Black and brown partygoers wanted to talk about the controversies driving headlines and prompting denunciations like Ramaswamy’s.
The same was true of the smattering of Asian American attendees at the sparsely attended black-tie Christmas party hosted by the Orange County Young Republicans in Newport Beach, California, where journalists were barred from attending.
Folks were a little more willing to engage in Manhattan at the 113th annual gala of the New York Young Republicans, held at the swanky Cipriani Ballroom on Wall Street where the attendees included conservative media figures, white nationalists like Jared Taylor and online provocateur EmpathChan, an influencer who recently drew backlash for wearing blackface on Halloween. (Most elected officials stayed away.)
The event happened just two months after POLITICO exposed members of the national Young Republicans Club for their role in a hate-filled, private group chat. Shortly after the report, the New York State chapter of the organization was unanimously disbanded by New York State Republican Party leaders. The event featured a surprisingly diverse crowd — even as the onstage presence of far-right German lawmaker Markus Frohnmaier and at least 19 members of Germany’s far-right Alternative for Germany party drew criticism.
The two Black and Latino partygoers willing to be interviewed shrugged off the Young Republicans texting scandal, which had embroiled many of their own club members. “I mean, the left will call anything on the right racist. The left called John McCain and Mitt Romney racist,” said Joe Goldmen, a volunteer at the event who described himself as Latino and Jewish.
“Black people are here, the door is wide open,” said Deroy Murdock, a Black board member of the New York Young Republicans Club and radio personality for Fox News. “Anybody who agrees with us is able to walk in … I've not heard anybody say, ‘Oh, we don't like your color, we don't like your background, we don't like your ethnicity.’”
A few things are going on here, according to Daniel Martinez HoSang, a Yale University professor who studies the multiracial right. This generation of conservatives of color, HoSang said, is very different from the buttoned-up, bow-tied conservatism of, say, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas or Sens. Tim Scott of South Carolina and Ted Cruz of Texas.
Many are coming from a grassroots, working class perspective, and as such, they’re less concerned about incendiary headlines and racial gaffes. They believe liberals are always pointing to racists within the GOP because their own policies have failed Black and brown communities and they don’t have anything else to offer.
“From their perspective,” HoSang said, “these headlines and leaks don’t capture the breadth of how deep conservatives think about and approach issues of race ... They’re skeptical of liberal solutions around desegregation and even things like affirmative action, not because they don't think there's racism, but because they don't think they've made any meaningful impact.”
What’s more, HoSang said, for young conservatives of color, “there's something that seems insurgent and subversive about the right at this moment.”
At AmFest, which panelist Craig Long calls the “Superbowl of conservatism,” the likes of Steve Bannon, Carlson, Megyn Kelley and Ben Shapiro were using the main stage to snipe at each other for being “frauds and grifters," arguing over who’s antisemitic — exposing a growing rift in the MAGA movement.
But the Black and brown people attending AmFest seemed more focused on reveling in community, in feeling the sense of peace that several attendees said comes from bonding with like-minded souls. Perhaps because there’s safety in numbers, they were willing to open up about their love of Charlie Kirk — a man whose controversial comments about minorities drew considerable notice from critics — as well as what drew them to the GOP and how they grapple with racism inside and outside the GOP.
A 27-year-old Asian American real estate agent from Maryland said he grew disillusioned with what he saw as the narrow-mindedness of the left, particularly in college, where he says professors often stifle the open exchange of ideas. “My friends around me are like, ‘We’re Asian and minority; we should be Democrats,” said the real estate agent Ryan, who would not give his last name or identify what part of Maryland he was from for fear of hurting his business.
“But I feel like I can make my own decisions. I'm not saying everything the Republican Party is doing is right, but I do feel like I align myself more with them ... I believe in truth and freedom and equality.”
As for the racist Young Republican texts, Ryan says, “I condemn those actions. I believe in freedom of speech but not hate speech.” Still, he hastened to add, Democrats are guilty of “reverse racism,” treating minorities like victims rather than people having agency over their own lives.
“Even though I’m a minority,” Ryan said, “I strongly disagree with DEI.”
For virtually everyone interviewed at AmFest, Christianity is what drove them into the GOP. Lena Tobin, 25, who was born in Haiti before being adopted by white parents in New Hampshire, says she started out as a Democrat, but her views on abortion and illegal immigration convinced her that Republicanism was the way to go. (She says she knows of violent Haitian gang members who migrated to the U.S.)
“After studying the Word of God, I just realized that there was a lot that I was kind of on the fence about and I realized that it just didn't align with His Word,” said Tobin, who serves in the Air National Guard for the Air Force and signed up for AmFest without knowing a soul.
Long, who toured historically Black colleges and universities around the country during homecoming season in an effort to spread the gospel of conservatism to Black college students, said while the right “doesn’t have a problem calling out our politicians,” the Republican Party should be careful about giving racists a “bulletin board.”
“I don't think that we should ever give people an opportunity… to use it against us,” Long told POLITICO Magazine. “We've already been demonized so much. Why give people ammunition?” But he said, he sees “hypocrisy” because there’s also racism in the Democratic party, such as the leaked recording of racist remarks made by Los Angeles City Council members,.
Outside the convention center, Seth Phillips, a slight man with dreadlocks that graze his shoulders, sat on a bench, talking about his conversion to Christianity, and with it, conservatism. Adopted by white parents, Phillips, who runs a small local community organization, grew up in rural South Dakota. When he became an adult he moved to the big city — Sioux Falls— and, struggling with an identity crisis, found himself on a search to understand his Blackness. That search, he said, was often “destructive”: Gangs, selling drugs, treating women like property. Today, his face, covered with tattoos, bears witness to his past life.
“I took the advice about what it means be Black from rappers rather than true Black leaders like Dr. Ben Carson and Thomas Sowell,” Phillips said, “those are who we should be elevating as voices in our community.”
A few years ago, after becoming a father to daughters, he started reevaluating his worldview. He was quickly embraced by the party and became an activist with TPUSA RISE. But he found that being embraced by the Republican Party meant being ostracized by his friends in the Black community.
“People say Republicans are racist,” Phillips said. “But since I’ve joined the conservative movement, I have not heard a single racist comment from a white person.
“However, I have been called ‘coon,’ ‘Uncle Tom,’ ‘Uncle Ruckus’ [by other Black people]. And it hurts. It really hurts, because I’ve spent so long trying to search for my place in the Black community.”
He was troubled by the group texts.
“Just like any demographic, yes, there are racists on this side,” Phillips said. “And I think we do need to be careful [about] the type of leeway and the type of rooms that we create that allow those ideas to flourish. I think sometimes the Republican Party has failed with curtailing those ideas from being spread within the party.”
“But,” he said of the Young Republicans texters, “those aren’t my people.” What did hurt: Trump’s derogatory comments about Somali immigrants.
“I felt betrayed,” he said. “I was disgusted.”
Does he have second thoughts about voting for Trump?
“I don’t regret my vote.” Ultimately, he said, he decided he cares more about seeing his values, like securing borders, reflected in policy. He reminds himself that the conservative movement is “far, far bigger” than one politician — Trump — who’s at the end of his political career.
And as he sees it, part of what comes next, what will help push the conservative movement forward is a growing coalition of working-class people of color who are firmly rooted in their Christian faith.
“We don’t feel pressured to reject our culture in order to have a place in this movement,” he said. “This movement is built on American values, hard work and personal responsibilities. That comes in all forms. A movement that asks you to reject who you are, that’s not a movement I want to be a part of.”
Cheyanne M. Daniels and Riya Misra in Washington, Caroline McCarthy in New York and Alex Nieves in California contributed to this report.
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